The present invention relates generally to the electrical, electronic and computer arts, and, more particularly, to pattern scanning and matching for use in high-speed data processing and analytics applications.
Pattern scanning and recognition applications are more and more prevalent across industries today, motivated at least in part by the increased need for security and analytics. Facial recognition is just one small niche in pattern recognition and analysis applications. In a facial recognition application, for example, there is an emerging trend to employ three-dimensional face recognition, which promises improved accuracy; it can also identify a face from a range of viewing angles, including a profile view. However, such improved accuracy, as well as enhanced analytics, comes at the expense of significantly increased amounts of data to be processed at increasingly higher rates of speed. Modern pattern scanners and scanning architectures are not capable of achieving the scan rates (e.g., terabits/second) necessary to support the hundreds of thousands to millions of patterns and millions of active scan sessions used in advanced pattern scanning and recognition applications.